Hows my light setup looking

Lmao.. 25 sixty watt incandescent lights bulbs and 15 halogen??? Wtf. Have you even did your homework??? Incandescent and halogen are useless. Not good for growing, now if you were trying to heat a grow room in Alaska, then all those bulbs would do something. Hps, led, cmh, cfl, t5 are the lights you need. Throw that other crap away..

 

You come on a grower's forum, ask an uneducated question and get laughed at. There's a reason that happened. Just get a damn 1000 HID setup for like $200 or less and screw the rest. 1000w is enough for plenty of plants.

 

Yessir, I have. And if you had, you wouldn't even ask about incandescent or halogen lighting good fellow. They are useless in growing cannibis yo.. And you would need a 10 inch exhaust fan and 2 air conditioners running to get rid of all that heat. Your post was funny though.. Not trying to blast ya, but you could of googled "growing cannibis with incandescent or halogen" way quicker than asking and getting blasted.. Just saying

 

Or, more efficiently: "Best Types of Light For Growing Cannabis."

 

Rude about it, but right. Incandescent grow bulbs can add SOMETHING, but mostly it's heat. They're wonderful for a little indoor herb garden in the kitchen, or to supplement houseplants in a room with little natural light, that's about it.

Halogens are typically entirely the wrong spectrum, but enough heat to cause massive burn.

So if the ICB's are grow lights...you can keep them, even though they're not much help, but dump the halogens for certain.

 

Wasn't trying to be rude necessarily, was trying to be sarcastic so op would take a little time to google something before asking such a silly question. And incandescent, whether it be labeled for grow or household, are absolutely rubbish when it comes to cannabis. IMHO cfl and t5 are rubbish too. But usable. Cmh, led, and mh/hps are the business.
OP needs to invest the 800 into a led, cmh, or mh/hps combo and a source of heat removal (exhaust,air cooled hood) and a way to scrub the air.
OP can buy a led from top led for about 500 and a exhaust and can fan for about 200. And be done. Just saying....

 

Point taken...and I agree with you on CFLs...they work, but not worth a squat, truthfully. I went into the science behind that on another thread.

You might like the way my hydro store's owner puts it:
"Want to know how good your CFL will work as a grow lamp? Drop it on the sidewalk from 10 feet up. It'll be as good for growing after that as it was before".

Expense on an LED depends on footprint. California Lightworks puts out a $300 model with a 2.5 foot by 2.5 foot flowering footprint. Effective lumens only half that of a 400 watt MH, but all "targeted", so every bit of it is used, so the effect is about equal of a 400 watt MH.

But, same thread with the scientific explanations, I showed why LEDs alone aren't an answer...no penetration that'll handle more than a 24" plant with enough energy.

I managed to get a "kit" setup for 1K HID bulbs, Bigfoot ducted hood, 1000 watt MH bulb, ballast, for $170, 8" Windking 745 cfm fan for another $125, $15 on 8" hard duct...so I bought two kits and two fans for my 5 by 10, kept the Solar Flare 220, but as a "booster", and added another pair (for a total of 4) 20 watt UVA/UVB reptile lights.

Being winter, with the tent in the garage, I'm having to run 22/2 cycle on lights for heat, no fans, and still using my "redneck engineering" method for gas level control and cooling of the lower portion of the tent (WANT the bottom of the tent cold, to keep the "deeper" parts of the soil as cool as nature would).



Trying to acquire parts to make a unique setup for the old 4 by 4, though. I want to try using laser strength diodes, beam splitters, controlled spinning mirrors, and frequency doubling and halving crystals (since I can't get all the bandwidths needed in laser strength LEDs), and see if I can grow properly/get proper penetration by essentially making the plants live in the middle of a laser light show...lol.

If it works the way the figures show it should, imagine the results.

 

I lost it on that line

 

yeah i would agree dump everything but the hid your budget doesnt allow for the LEDs unless they are cheap. cheap leds suck and the other lights are not worth your effort. I personally hate growing in small spaces with large heating elements. If you could come up with it a couple of these in there would make your life so much easier. 
View attachment 142627

 

He could (and I cringe at saying this) buy two Solar Flare 400's from California Lightworks...damn good LEDs, for about $600, and fill the rest of the budget with CFLs.

I HATE CFLs, they don't deliver the light intensity. And LEDs lose light intensity faster, but unless you're growing tall plants, that's not a huge factor, is it?
 
The Solar Flares have a rated foorprint of 3 by 3 veg and 2.5 by 2.5 flower. Combined with CFLs, you might "starve" them a bit raising them enough to get sufficient total footprint for that size tent...but it's better than "100 watts per plant CFL" all by itself by a mile.

 

i used that solar fare it had good quality but the buds where tiny. I hate cfls also LEDs have to have secondary lenses or they are similar to cfls. I do love LEDs though the first ones sucked but things have been changing.  

 

Not as much as you'd think.

Lumenocity is based off distance from emitter. Each LED is an independent emitter. Of fairly low luminosity. In simple terms, even accumulated into one footprint, they don't deliver the intensity of light needed at any "real" distance (hence "no penetration" complaints).

Their advantages are they are cool, and they are more efficient in producing the RIGHT wavelengths for the plant to use...so they can generally be counted on to have the effect of double their rated wattage at the same distance, even though the light intensity is less even than a CFL of the same "true wattage"

The "getting better" is another "true and false". Each emitter is becoming more powerful (producing more lumens per emitter), but inefficiencies apply. a 3 watt LED isn't as powerful as 3 1 watt ones...it's really only about as powerful as 2.75. A 5 watt is about as powerful in intensity as 4 1 watts.

That's going to add up, when we get to 400 watt single LEDs (and we WILL get there...if you have around $10,000 to spend, there are already 50 watters in existence...but their intensity is only 30 times that of a 1 watt). 

I'm not naysaying LEDs...they are the future, IMO. But right now, no matter how you cut it, when it comes to lumens to the watt, HID still wins.



All that said...I'm tinkering with an idea, and acquiring equipment to try it, in my "retired" 4 by 4 any LED aficionado would appreciate (and most plain old geeks).

Why can't we use LASER intensity diodes? I mean sure, they're more power hungry, but nothing compared to any other manufactured light source on the market.
They WILL burn, left focused at one point for too long...and don't cover the plant well enough.
Did you know a "green LASER pointer" isn't green? It's IR run through a frequency doubling crystal assembly.

If I can acquire all the splitters, mirrors, motors, and gear I need (think about a tenth of what's needed to run a laser show, without needing quite that intensity of light projectors), I SHOULD be able to "pan" LASER intensity LED light over the plants fast enough to get the effects of proper coverage...at intensities that will do some damn good. Using the frequency doubling, halving, and quartering crystal assemblies out there, as well as the few different LASER intensity emitters, I MIGHT be able to create a very cool (temp-wise) grow room where the plants get only useful wavelengths in proper balance, with enough coverage to grow, and not enough to create burn spots, since they never rest in one place long enough to damage.

Hell if I know if it will actually WORK, but it's enough to make a geek drool, and a fun way to drop 10 grand. Worst case scenario, I end up having LASER Zepplin in my back yard all summer.

 

I love the laser idea all though it is way over my head. a year ago i would have agreed with you about LEDs. this light changed my mind http://advancedledlights.com/3w-led-grow-lights/new-diamond-series-xml-10w-cree-xml/ I measured mine at 62k lux using 330 watts and my 600 hps was throwing 48k lux at just under 650 watts. My wife would crap if i had a zepplin laser show in my back yard LOL my neighbors would be fun too.  

 

I came up with it after learning that bit about green dot laser pointers actually being IR. All the sudden everything I learned about FM radio came flooding back, got in touch with my old Physics 220 prof, and he started stroking his beard, so to speak.
 
So it became a "I HAVE to try this, even if it doesn't work" deal. I'm figuring mount the emitter assemblies facing straight down between each plant with adjustable angle splitters and panning (spinning) mirrors, with the crystal assemblies mounted directly under the emitters, and spun at about 750 RPM (so the light changes bandwidth full cycle 750 times per minute)...

Done right, it will be panning up and down the SIDES of the plants, instead of shining down from above.

Somewhat like the effect the hanging rotating "LED bars" that have started appearing on the market as an answer to "penetration concerns" do, but with more intense light.

 

All you need a dual 600 watt hood and ballast if room is controlled all ready and save up money and get a kessil 380 does veg and bloom top LEDs on market


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yes that is what i am talking about I may start calling you Dr Indie LOL!! you have to document it I want to see it. I love the idea of being able to "blend" light. the coral guys have been making what they call god chips trying to place multiple colors on a single chip to get a blended light. it has been a while since i have looked into that i will have to go see if they have made much progress. 
 

I understand people have budgets but screw the money what about the fun and enjoyment of growing and experimentation. I do want the best bargain for my money no doubt but most of all i want the best possible equipment available to give me the highest quailty paka i can grow. for me money is a always a secondary issue when it comes to equipment. example: to outfit a grow room the way i prefer you spend about $6000 for my little area that will allow you to collect on average 48 ounces with minimal effort. 48 x ounce$ = the money doesnt matter just buy the absolute best that will give you the highest quality and plenty of it.
 
I like that kessil for coral but for plants i found it was weak compared to several other lights. just like with most lights they are great until you test it against a real horticulture light. 

 

If you want to play with LEDs, talk to cmgreenonetoo.

As much as we've butted heads, he's pointed me to a lot of sources for products that balance price and quality spec components. I'm still not ready to go full LED centered in my big tent, but they're getting DAMN close to where I will be. 2-3 years at the most, at this rate. I might make the jump early, and switch out in June with my next crop, switch to a 400 watt HID as my "secondary source" until LED gets to the point I feel I'm still giving the plants everything they need in sufficient amounts using them.

 

Been growing decades....the dankest , most honest to God fire was with 1000 w HPS...BUT, and its a BIG but...it costs a fortune to run it in electricity..have since switched to powerful leds and will never go back...the savings are just too great to ignore...the stuff is still sticky and dank but not quite up to the high pressure sodium stuff...but not too far off...not going to pay those kinds of electricity bills ever again for sure...but outside...even here in the cold north, I got over a kilo of Hindu Kush off of one plant this summer ...thats the real place to grow...